New Market Highs

 1/16/2026

New Market Highs

 

Speaking of highs…the cost of information is the lowest it has ever been since humans began walking on two legs, yet the cost of Education from K-12 to Higher Education is higher than ever. This is not sustainable.

Artificial Intelligence AI has been around in some form since the arrival of the electronic spreadsheet in the late 197.0s Grammar and spell check arrived in word documents in the early 1990s.  Amart phones are now smart computers.  But technology is not a linear function, it jumps in step-variable ways.  AI is the latest big step up. Go to copilot.microsoft.com and ask for a story of your choosing. I asked for write the Carlie Javice story and got it in less than ten seconds. This is instant Wikipedia. Is this learning?  It is if you read the article and understand it. If you just hand it in as your work, not so much.

People are living much longer and need more care. Social Security will be out of funds by 2033. Roads and bridges need repair. The US Navy is woefully inadequate compared to China’s growing fleet.  Something has to  give. Mississippi has leaped above most states in K-12 wihtout spending lots of money. Big changes are coming to education.

Despite all the hub bub over Venezuela, oil prices are still around 60. Trump claims he is running Venezuela. No doubt that is music to the ears the thugs left in place after the Madero snatch.  Cuba has played the game o f modest prison release and then more arrests for years. That  playbook is now in place. But Trump thought he had a buddy iun Putin as well, how is that turning out?

Stock and metals markets are at new highs. Silver has made the biggest advance since the Hunt Silver Thursday of 1979. January 2, 1979 silver cost $6.08 and ounce. By January 18, 1980, silver waws $50.35. The Hunt brothers had accumulated massive future positions of silver using margin financing. Rather than closing the contracts, they asked for delivery. There was not enough silver to meet that demand, hence the rapid price increase. Gold also reached $850 an once that day. The Comex Exchange passed Silver Rule 7 restricting margin purchases. The Hunts eventually took bankruptcy. The difference then and now is that there are no Hunt Brothers trying to corner the market. And prices have remained stubbornly high, off only $5 today.

One can say the same of the stock market which is at new highs. Yes markets are overbought on number of measures.  Dividend yields of 1.4$ and price to sales ratios of 3.5 to one.  The NYSE advance decline line has reached another new high as it did in 1929 and 1973. Dramatic declines followed. We shall see if history repeats.

Dennis.elam@att.net